The airline Eurowings feels nothing of a consumer crisis. The Lufthansa subsidiary for direct flights expects to make a profit and is expanding.
The airline Eurowings does not feel any reluctance on the part of the passengers in its current business. “The slump in consumption doesn’t reach us,” says Jens Bischof, head of the Lufthansa subsidiary, in Cologne. Due to the increase in pre-bookings by a third compared to the previous year, 50 additional flights to Mallorca are planned for the autumn holidays, for example.
From the winter timetable onwards, the company intends to offer direct flights again from Nuremberg and Hanover airports, where one aircraft will be permanently stationed. In Hanover, the home airport of competitor Tuifly, Eurowings is also planning to offer around 400,000 seats to various holiday destinations on the Mediterranean with a second aircraft in the summer of 2024.
After the adjusted EBIT figure had already exceeded the break-even point in the second quarter, Bischof announced a net profit for the full year 2023, including after taxes and depreciation. He resisted the impression that the airlines had only achieved this by increasing ticket prices. “Out of the crisis, we fundamentally changed Eurowings and developed it into Germany’s largest holiday airline,” says the manager.
No further price increase in sight
With the price development of the tickets, which are a good 20 percent more expensive than in the previous year, a reasonable level has been reached if there are no unexpected cost increases, says Bischof. The sometimes drastically increased costs had to be passed on. The manager criticizes: “The German airports are the most expensive on the whole continent.”
However, long-term contracts have been negotiated with most of the service providers, which now offer some stability. Bischof was also optimistic that the wage negotiations with the pilots and flight attendants of the German main company, which were still open, could be brought to a successful conclusion without a strike.
Meanwhile, the Frankfurt Lufthansa subsidiary Eurowings Discover is about to break away from its Cologne sister company Eurowings. Bischof called it a good decision that the company changed its name to Discover Airlines. This makes the difference much clearer for customers. A spokeswoman for Eurowings Discover did not want to confirm the renaming when asked. However, the company registered the name Discover Airlines with the German Patent and Trademark Office at the beginning of July, she says.
Source: Stern
